Phoenix Ascendant - eARC

by Ryk E. Spoor

  The Balanced Sword was flung upward a hundred feet, to come crashing down a few dozen feet away.

  Kyri felt her body going numb with shock. No. Myrionar, no…

  Virigar stood atop the wreckage, smiling down at them. “And now all truly is ready.”

  She could not take her gaze from the glowing, blank eyes, now yellow, now green, now blue, nor stop herself from saying, “But…how…?”

  “How did I survive? Oh, Phoenix, that was a master-stroke, I give that to you. Stunning me with silver and power, then bringing down the Sword! A perfectly marvelous plan, and such symmetry! I brought down the entire faith of Myrionar, and you would defeat me by literally bringing the Balanced Sword down in vengeance.

  “Unfortunately for you, I was able to get my hands up just in time, and prevented the thing from entirely splitting me in twain.” Virigar held up his hands, which were blackened and scored deeply; there was also a deep scar down his face. “This may actually take some moments to heal.”

  “Then let’s not give you those moments,” Tobimar said coldly. Instantly he was springing past her, charging with both swords before him. On his shoulder, Poplock gestured and sent silver coins streaming out ahead of them from one of Tobimar’s pouches.

  Aran was charging too, and Bolthawk heaved himself up and lumbered forward, limping slightly but still undeterred, and the Watchland was leaping nimbly upward as well.

  Even as she forced herself to move, broke her paralysis, Virigar roared, and the others were cast aside, crumpling with weakness or falling from the sheer impact of sound that was like a bludgeon. “Child of Skysand, you have no say in the matter,” the King of Wolves said, stepping over Tobimar, who tried to move but failed to do more than raise his hand. “This battle has always been intended to end in one way, and one way only: the last Justiciar against me, falling by my hand, under these exact circumstances.”

  Kyri summoned as much power as she could, but it was nowhere near enough. Even in the moment she felt her perceptions speed up, Virigar streaked the last few feet and caught her up about the throat.

  For an instant, she felt despair; but then she refused it. I haven’t done anything wrong here; I’ve done the best I could. I’ve kept faith. There is—there has to be—a way out of even this.

  “So end it, then,” she said. “You hold the last of Myrionar’s faith. That’s what you were after.”

  “In part.”

  “In part?

  The crystal grin widened. “You still have not quite solved the riddle? Yet it was you, yourself, who assured me that my plan would come to fruition; your own words told me it was all prepared.”

  “What?” Desperately she searched her memory for something she could have said that would have told Virigar anything of the sort.

  “You said that Myrionar had sworn an oath to you—in the name of the very power of the gods. Is this not so?”

  “Yes…”

  The King of Wolves waited, then shrugged. “I suppose you lack the proper perspective to solve this riddle. Master Wieran would have understood, I think.

  “Simple enough, then. So far, what I have told you was the truth, just not all of the truth. I did, indeed, need everything focused upon you, so that no…ideal, no symbol, of Myrionar was strong enough to serve as another anchor for the god in this moment, not even in the minds of those who had opposed the god directly but who believed in its existence—which is, naturally, why all the false Justiciars needed to be either dead or focused entirely upon you. No symbols; only you, only the focus of all that remains. Even now, that oath binds Myrionar’s last power to you. An oath that connects Myrionar to the power of the gods, specifically to the power of its allies.”

  She felt the blood drain from her face. “No.”

  “Yes! Oh, now you see!” The face before her was the Watchland’s again, but a Watchland holding her like a doll in one hand. “If I consume the very essence of Myrionar, with that oath still in force, I can consume—I can duplicate—those connections, and through them, I can slowly and surely consume all of Myrionar’s allies…and they will never be able to stop it from happening, because the very power of the gods creates that connection, they can no more undo it than they can act against their own natures. I will have become Myrionar, and they will be bound to me!”

  Kyri felt as though time had frozen with the pure, absolute horror of that revelation. Even Myrionar was just a tool for him. “And Myrionar…”

  “…was the only reasonable choice. Such connections among the gods exist at all levels, of course, but there would be no way for me to, for example, eliminate all the priests and knights of Terian, or even of Thor or of the Three Beards. But Myrionar’s faith, that still had a single, singular source, could have its outlying temples pared down, its worshippers diverted to other faiths, could be slowly reduced until I could distill it down to a single, ultimate defender, who would become the god’s perfect and final vessel.”

  Virigar laughed, and as he laughed she felt the last strength starting to ebb away. The King of Wolves was going to win the final prize, and no justice would be done, no vengeance would be hers.

  No justice?

  Though her strength was fading like morning mist before the sun, her mind grasped at that thought in outrage. No. That isn’t possible. After all this, with everyone believing in Myrionar—in me—I can’t fail them. Myrionar can’t fail them.

  And then she saw it, through shock and fading consciousness, and even though a part of her recoiled with disbelief, the rest of her simply said of course.

  Justice and vengeance. These were the very foundation of Myrionar. And as Virigar had said, the gods could not act against their natures.

  Yet Myrionar had. Myrionar hadn’t given a single hint to Arbiter Kelsley about the true nature of their adversary, when Myrionar had to have known. Her parents and her brother had gone unavenged, no justice done for them. All the others who had died in Evanwyl of Virigar’s schemes, of Thornfalcon’s malice, they had died without justice or vengeance.

  But a god cannot act against its nature.

  And what was it that Virigar had done?

  Replaced the symbol of the Balanced Sword.

  The part of her that denied the revelation turned back, and brought forth another recollection, as she had spoken to the Wanderer:

  “A prophecy. You have a prophecy.”

  “Not…precisely. Though, perhaps, close enough for your purposes.”

  And then, she finally remembered one other thing:

  A voice that seemed both as unfamiliar as a stranger on the street, yet so familiar that she felt she had always known it.

  Kyri opened her eyes, and Virigar’s laugh paused, for she was smiling.

  “Injustice,” she said.

  “What?” The blue eyes flickered to blank, glowing yellow.

  “It is impossible for a god to act against their nature. Yet Myrionar allowed so much injustice. I believe in Myrionar, and Myrionar swore that there was a way out for me, and that means that there was a reason. There was something else, something so important that even the loss of the Justiciars, the destruction of the very faith, was less important.

  As the wolf-eyes narrowed, she finished, “and what could that possibly be, except the god’s very existence itself?”

  “But then it should have acted earlier, unless—” Virigar’s eyes flew wide, wells of pure white shock. “No.”

  But his tone said YES.

  “This is the day that Myrionar was BORN!” Fire burned through her, fire sweet and pure as justice itself, and she felt the focus of a thousand prayers upon her as Kyri Victoria Vantage spoke her final words. “I AM Myrionar!”

  Chapter 42

  Tobimar realized he, himself, must have the same expression as he saw on Virigar’s face in that instant: a paralyzing, stunned disbelief…a disbelief that was founded on a vastly stronger, bone-deep belief, for that deepest part of him understood, and he heard Poplock and the Watchland both murmur “O
f course,” next to him.

  Kyri Vantage detonated in golden fire.

  Virigar was flung away like a doll, the flood of power so immense that it was clear that all he could do was blunt it, even with his soul-consuming Hunger. He was blown through the mountain of rubble that had been the Retreat, to fetch up against the trunk of a massive tree, staring up as a mighty red-gold firebird rose into the sky…and then transformed into the blazing symbol of the Balanced Sword, a symbol from which walked Myrionar, Kyri Vantage burning with the power of a newborn god.

  The world was silent for a moment then, save only for the subliminal hum of absolute might that vibrated from Myrionar, potency vastly greater than any Tobimar had sensed, save perhaps only that of Sanamaveridion himself, dwarfing even the power of the Golden-Eyed God. Virigar rose slowly, eyes wide enough that Tobimar could see the whites against the darkness of the false-Watchland’s face.

  Then a smile like lightning burst across Virigar’s face, and he threw back his head and laughed, a laugh like a man told that his lost children had come home, that his daughter had become a hero of the land. Tobimar stared in confusion as the laughter continued, and then Virigar shouted in a voice that shook the earth, “MAGNIFICENT! Oh, magnificent, wonderful, superlative! To play the game across time and space itself, to make the trap of the hunter your own creation and salvation!”

  Virigar spread his arms wide, as though to embrace the sights before him. “My plan is entirely destroyed, for you are a new-born god, and none of the connections you had forged before exist.”

  “Exactly,” she said. The voice was still that of Kyri Vantage, but more powerful, more certain, and the energies of the god seethed about her weapon, energies much harder to drain when the god was aware and incarnate.

  He shook his head. “Still, I can barely take in the perfection of the plan. And once more, your timing! Your symmetry! To have made my belief the final trigger of your apotheosis…MY belief, my realization and certainty of the truth, making you stronger, oh, vastly stronger in every possible way than you could have been otherwise.” He chuckled, still shaking his head in admiration. “This wasn’t just Myrionar’s work, oh no. Khoros must have had a hand in it, and the Wanderer perhaps. Terian, almost certainly, and maybe even the Golden-Eyed God.”

  “The Wanderer, certainly,” Tobimar said slowly. “He knew…knew what was to come. What had already happened, in Myrionar’s future.”

  The King of Wolves nodded, rubbing his hands together as though anticipating a most marvelous present. The whole scene sent creeping chills down Tobimar’s spine. He seems surprised, yet happy. This can’t have been his plan!

  “And,” Virigar went on, “as you have just been born, created here, you are native to Zarathan, you exist here and only here. The ban of the gods does not apply. Oh, I say again, magnificent. Not in a thousand thousand centuries have I been so completely gulled, so maneuvered by others while maneuvering myself.” He bowed deeply. “My compliments and admiration to you and your fellow artists, for this is art of the highest degree.”

  Then he transformed to his true form. “All I can salvage, then, is to take the soul of a pure, newborn god!”

  “Not even that,” Myrionar said, and her voice reminded Tobimar of what she had said, that Myrionar’s voice seemed both that of a stranger and utterly familiar. Of course it would. We do not sound to ourselves as we sound to others. So she spoke to herself, secure in the knowledge that she would never imagine it was her own voice.

  “Not even that,” Myrionar said again, and raised her sword. Light blazed across her body, transforming her armor so it shone pure silver in the sun. “For how could I have arranged this, gone back to the beginning of my faith and founded it, if I were destroyed here? Your ending is foreordained, Virigar. You have only the choice of flight or of death.”

  Virigar tilted his immense, alien head with its impossible crystal maw, and then smiled, a fearsome and eerie sight. “Oh, now, not at all.”

  The world shuddered as he raised his arms, talons a foot long standing up from his curled fingers, and a darkness swirled about him. “Think you that you understand what you face, little godling?” Virigar said, and though he spoke softly, the words carried the force of a Dragon’s shout. “I am the Godsbane, Myrionar New-born, and even time has no hold on ME, paradox is neither barrier nor threat! Ask your heart, born from the ashes of your defeat, ask your allies, call for Chromaias’ word, ask the wisdom of Terian, and they will tell you that the outcome is far, far from certain.”

  Tobimar rose. The shock had worn off now, and he had regained High Center. Even around Virigar he could see the weaving of peril and possibility—terrible peril, miniscule possibility, but even there, even there against the legend of the death of legends, there remained a spark of hope, a chance of victory. And about Myrionar, the weave of strength and will was still strong. “She will not be your only opponent, King of Wolves.” He called up Terian’s power, and wove it into his body, through his swords, but not outside himself, where the Werewolf could easily reach it. On his shoulder, he felt Poplock—pained, broken, weary—lift his tiny sword defiantly.

  “No, she will not,” the Watchland said. He bent down, reached into the rubble, and pulled forth Earaningalane. “The Sword of the Watchland is returned to me, thrown forth from the wreckage in the moment of your plan’s dissolution, and it will strike at least a blow or two for our true patron…and truest daughter.”

  Aran said nothing, and neither did Bolthawk, but both brought up their hands in readiness.

  Myrionar smiled and gestured, and into all of them poured gold-fire power. “If you would stand with me, then you will not lack for speed and strength…nor for health,” she said, and rose from the ground on burning-gold wings, preparing to strike from above.”

  “Ooo, now that’s gonna help!” Poplock said. “I fight lots better without broken bones.”

  “So be it,” Virigar said, his smile undimmed, his teeth growing and shrinking with each word, serving in a macabre way as lips. “But it will come to the two of us in the end, little Phoenix who was, Myrionar who is, and I have slain more gods than you could count.”

  “It will end here,” she said. “Justice demands it.”

  The monster said nothing. For a moment, all of them were still as statues, knowing that the next movement would signal the beginning of a combat that would decide the fate of Evanwyl and beyond.

  Then, without so much as a twitch of warning, Virigar streaked across the ground, a howling wind of death.

  Even with Terian’s power increasing his speed and strength, Tobimar would have been dead in that instant, except that—just as on that far-off day in which Thornfalcon had nearly taken his head—the web of possibility had drawn to a single point of certainty. The swords forged by the Spiritsmith crossed before him in the very instant two mighty taloned hands slashed down, and caught the crystal claws perfectly. In the same moment, Poplock sent a fountain of silver coins into Virigar’s mouth. The Werewolf King gagged, but his immense strength shoved Tobimar away, sent him rolling down the slope of broken masonry.

  That, however, had slowed Virigar just sufficiently. Bolthawk and Aran each caught one of those mighty arms, and the Watchland proved as good as his word: Earaningalane’s silver blade struck hard and true in a powerful overhand blow that carved through the crystal-fanged head. Myrionar appeared above, and drove her own sword down, straight into Virigar’s body, six feet of Sauran-forged, silver-alloyed metal.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Tobimar had just that tiny bit of advance warning to throw himself flat before the mangled body gave a gurgling roar and stripped every ounce of power from those surrounding him—save only Myrionar, and even she wavered in the air, pulling back in consternation as Virigar’s head and body reformed. Tobimar felt the extra energy gifted to him vanish, and even part of Terian’s strength faded. He…he is something completely different, on an utterly higher scale, than we have ever faced.

 
He saw the same expression on Myrionar’s face, and knew that she, too, was not sure they would leave this place alive.

  Chapter 43

  She was not sure how to think of herself now; a part of her was still firmly Kyri Vantage, but there was a new, vaster part that was Myrionar, that saw farther, saw more, understood more, could do more than Kyri had ever imagined possible.

  And it still might not suffice.

  The living Hunger of Virigar tore at her strength, at the power that was her essence; it was a battle of her will against that of the Godslayer, and even as she was—for the moment—winning the battle, still she was going to lose the war if she could not find another path to victory.

  “Oh, come now, Myrionar,” Virigar said, and gestured an invitation for her to land. “Let us complete this saga.”

  “It seems you cannot fly,” she said. “Why, then, should I not stay up here, beyond your reach, and shred you with silver borne on my fire?”

  Virigar raised a rough-furred eyebrow at that. “I could point out that I could finish your companions, and force you to land that way. But…”

  Abruptly the monster’s form wavered, twisted, and launched skyward, a bat-winged, crystal-fanged nightmare, Virigar in the shape of a Dragon. “Cannot fly? Child, child, I am the Unseen Death, the Shadow within Shadow. There is no shape I cannot take, no power you can use to escape my pursuit. Face me on the ground, face me in the air, face me within the seas. It matters not, for in all places I remain the Lightslayer.”

  Forced to confrontation, she reinforced the silver armor she had created about herself, and met Virigar’s charge with a head-on strike.

  A shockwave blasted out from the point of impact, blowing trees flat for a half-mile around, hammering her friends down, and she realized that mere proximity to this battle could—and would—kill them.

  But the impact, with the strength of a newborn god behind it, had been enough to send Virigar sailing back, flaring his wings to recover, and that gave Kyri-Myrionar a moment to gesture, to send healing life and shielding power to cover them. She was still unsure of the extent of her capabilities, but such a shield would protect them from the simple consequences of combat.